He watched von Helvig go to the street, saw the doorman signal a taxi. The taxi sped along Pennsylvania Avenue. The Agent followed in his own hired car. Again his pulses throbbed with excitement. He believed he knew where von Helvig was going—to keep a tryst with a beautiful lady. Was it possible he knew the lady’s name?
Von Helvig’s taxi drew up before a building of fashionable apartments. He paid the driver, walked nonchalantly into the elaborate foyer.
Agent “X” drove on, parking a full block away. He walked briskly back. Von Helvig had disappeared. In the bronze directory Agent “X” looked for a name—and found it. Lili Damora! This, he believed, was the lovely lady von Helvig had come to see.
The eyes of Agent “X” were snapping. Lili Damora’s apartment was 4E. He must learn what was said at this meeting between von Helvig and the sinuous-bodied woman from Budapest. To do so he was prepared to gamble with fate again.
He walked boldly past the uniformed doorman. The girl at the telephone desk stopped him.
“Miss Damora is expecting me,” “X” said. Experience had taught him that a confident manner allays suspicions. He went directly to the elevator, ascending to the fourth floor.
Here he became more cautious. The corridor was empty. Faint sounds of radios and conversation came from behind the closed doors.
Agent “X” walked forward to 4E. His eyes darted alertly about This was evidently a large apartment. There were two doors. One marked with the letter and number. The other blank. That would be a bedroom. The first probably opened on an entrance hall with the living room off it. To go in there would be inviting disaster.
He stopped by the first door, listened. The faint sound of voices reached his ears. He moved on to the second, and could hear nothing.
The Agent worked quickly then. Keeping a sharp eye out along the corridor, he used his compact tool set with its implements that would open any lock. In a few seconds, with hardly a sound, the door moved inward, and he found himself as he had expected, in a bedroom. Von Helvig’s coat, hat, and stick were on the bed. Voices came from a room beyond—the living room.
THE Agent’s nerves were tingling. He crept forward across the dark floor. Perfume bottles and powder jars stood on the dresser. There was the vague odor of scent in the air. This was the exotic Lili’s chamber. A strange place for Agent “X” to be.
He put his ear to the door, listened intently. He hoped he would hear enough in the next few minutes to size up the situation. The throaty voice of the brunette reached him. His eyes shone.
“Don’t be impatient, Otto. I am hungry. Let us have dinner first. We can discuss this afterwards.”
Von Helvig’s answer was harsh.
“It is safer here—where there are none to listen. You know as well as I that every restaurant in Washington is a hotbed of espionage. Tell me what you have to say. Then we can enjoy ourselves at dinner—and at the ball afterwards.”
“Yes—the ball,” said Lili, speaking in a husky drawl.
“Come—come, Lili, don’t fence, or I shall think you are stringing me along, as the Americans say.”
“Perhaps I am,” said Lili softly. “Perhaps I pretend to know things I do not know just to enjoy your company, Otto.”
Von Helvig gave an angry exclamation.
“Don’t,” said Lili. “You look so fierce that I am afraid. I shall be frank with you. I must have two or three days more.”
“You don’t know where they are then?”
“Not precisely—I told you that. But I think I know how to go about finding them. Two or three days more, Otto, with your help, and we shall have them.”
“They are here in Washington then? They haven’t been taken away?”
“If it were otherwise how could I expect to get them,” said Lili evasively.
“I hope you realize, Lili, that I’m not a man to be trifled with?”
The Agent’s mind leaped back. That was what von Helvig had said earlier in the day to him—and the man had proved it. If Lili was fencing, she had better watch out.
What “X” had heard was not encouraging. Lili herself did not seem sure. Perhaps she was only playing a game with von Helvig. Or perhaps she really knew. In that case it would mean hours, perhaps days of patient shadowing. Could either Shank or Zeb be trusted? Wouldn’t Betty Dale be more of a help? Lili Damora moved in the diplomatic set. He would ask Betty to discover if possible exactly who her friends were and how she spent her days. He listened a moment more.
“I am disappointed,” von Helvig was saying. “Very disappointed.”
“Don’t be sulky, Otto. Trust me—and remember—keep your eyes open tonight. Every one of importance in Washington will be present at the ball, including Senator Cobb!”
The Agent started. Was Lili merely trying to confuse von Helvig. It almost seemed so.
“X” moved back across the bedroom to the door. Von Helvig would be coming for his coat presently—and “X” had heard enough to convince him that a fog of mystery still hung over the stolen Browning plans. It was still a race between himself and the green-masked murderer who had killed Saunders and Peters.
AMONG the brilliant guests at the home of Senator Marvin Foulette that night was a young man introduced as Raphael Sancho, descendant of a wealthy South American family and the nephew of a president.
He was here in Washington, it was said, to study the American form of government at close range. He was an ambassador of good will. It was at the request of a high government official that the Foulettes had invited him at the last moment.
They welcomed him at the door. Mrs. Foulette, a dignified, white-haired lady, murmured a conventional phrase of greeting. The senator shook his hand perfunctorily. He passed on into the ballroom of the senator’s big home, now ablaze with lights, and filled with people. A few débutantes cast admiring glances at him, but otherwise he was unnoticed. There was no representative present from the particular country from which he came.
The young man, however, appeared perfectly at ease. He strolled about the big room and, using excellent Spanish, engaged the Brazilian ambassador in a conversation concerning South American tariffs.
As his tongue rattled off dry statistics, his alert eyes scanned the main door. The even flow of his words ceased for a moment as Senator Blackwell and his party arrived. Suzanne Blackwell was with her father, escorted by Sam Barkley. Suzanne’s college chum, Betty Dale, held the arm of the senator.
It was upon her that the eyes of Raphael Sancho dwelt. And in their veiled depths was a look of fondness and admiration.
The girl whose hair held the golden glint of imprisoned sunlight was radiantly beautiful tonight. A simple green dress set off her dainty figure. Her eyes held a sparkle of excitement, making them seem as bright as the single jewel at her throat.
Others arrived, Lili Damora, dark, almost serpentine in her lithe grace, with full, pouting lips and a dazzling smile; Otto von Helvig, wearing the ribbon of a military order across his chest, courtly as a prince of the blood.
Upon these, too, the eyes of Raphael Sancho rested for a moment, while a thin smile twitched the corners of his mouth. Senator and Mrs. Foulette left their position by the entranceway and circulated among the guests. They took pains to introduce Raphael Sancho to a number of eager young women. It wasn’t long before he was gliding around the ballroom to the strains of a languorous dance from the Argentine.
But his eyes still followed the form of the girl in the green dress, the girl with golden hair and a single jewel at her throat.
Betty Dale seemed at times preoccupied, too. Once her eyes met Sancho’s and looked beyond him. Again he smiled thinly. Not until a series of formal introductions led him to the side of Suzanne Blackwell did he mention what was on his mind.
They had danced to one number. He was leading Suzanne back toward her father. He spoke softly.
“The girl in the green dress, with the golden hair. Is she not a friend of yours, Miss Blackwell? Did she not enter with your
party?”
Suzanne Blackwell laughed. “Yes,” she said, “and I am jealous, Señor Sancho. I believe you danced with me just to get an introduction to her. My friend Betty Dale is always pulling the choicest plums out of the pie.”
“Plums?” said Sancho vaguely. “Pie?”
“That’s right,” said Suzanne. “A nice kind of fruit, you know, and an American form of pastry. But come—here’s Betty now. I’m sure you’ll find her a more accomplished dancer than I.”
The young Señor Raphael Sancho bowed low over Betty Dale’s slim hand.
“Miss Dale,” he said. “I am so happy to meet. Is it that you will dance with me?”
Betty’s voice was perfunctory as she accepted. Her expression was slightly worried. Someone she had hoped to see was not here. Raphael Sancho whirled her into the rhythm of a sinuous bolero. His tones were ingratiating as he talked with his charming Spanish accent. But she hardly listened. To her he was just another of the indolent young men to be found in the gay society of America’s capital. Betty Dale, for all her youthful appearance, had the keenness of maturity and experience.
It wasn’t until Raphael Sancho uttered a sudden mysterious phrase in perfect English that Betty became electrified.
“There are shadows beneath the sunlight,” Sancho said.
The blue eyes of Betty Dale grew bright. She tensed in the arms of Raphael Sancho. Her gaze met his.
“Careful,” he added. “Wolves lurk in the shadows.” Then, as the music stopped, he drew her to a seat in the corner. “Let me show you a picture of my country, Miss Dale.”
HE drew from his pocket a small photograph of a South American capital. Betty Dale stared with wonder. Suddenly the man called Raphael Sancho flipped the photograph over, holding it in his palm so that only Betty could see. In that moment she held her breath in excitement. A single letter showed on the back of the picture, written in some strange ink. It was the letter “X,” and under the glare of the lights it slowly began to fade.
“You!” she said. “I did not guess!” Then, in spite of her effort at self-control, the color in her cheeks deepened. Her eyes became ever more bright. The man whom she most respected and admired in all the world was at her side. The man whose real face she had never seen, but whose strange, dynamic personality had cast a spell over her emotions so that all other men by comparison seemed lame. The man, whom, deep in her heart, she loved.
But Betty Dale knew that “X” had only his work to think of. She knew that the time might never come when they could be more to each other than they were now—loyal, trusting friends and allies. She knew that she had no right ever to interfere with his strange, caring career.
The Agent pocketed his photograph. He looked quickly around.
“There is a small alcove at the end of the room,” he said. “Perhaps we can continue our discussion of South America there.”
They circled the dance floor, a youthful, graceful couple. Eyes followed Betty Dale enviously because she had apparently captured the interest of the dashing Raphael Sancho. Other eyes looked with envy upon Sancho because he was holding the attention of the room’s loveliest girl.
They sat on a bench in the alcove and Betty Dale spoke quickly.
“I have found out nothing except that both the senator and Suzanne seem upset. Ferris has gone to the sanatorium again. But I don’t thick that’s what’s worrying them. It is something else.”
“Yes,” said the Agent. “Be careful, Betty. Be on your guard even when you are talking to Suzanne. She has friends. It is these friends I want you to watch. Find out all you can about Lili Damora, and the German attaché, Otto von Helvig. Find out also about Senators Foulette, Cobb, and Rathborne: Remember anything you hear.”
“I will,” said Betty. “Is it something very important?”
“Very,” said the Agent.
“And dangerous?”
A shadow came into the Secret Agent’s eyes for a moment. He was thinking of Green Mask.
“I have said be careful, Betty. Be on your guard every instant.”
Betty touched his arm suddenly. “Nothing will happen to me. It is you I am thinking of. I read about the terrible murder of Senator Rathborne’s man. Had that anything to do with what is worrying you?”
The Agent nodded. “Yes, Betty, it had. But my reason for being in Washington is more vital even than the hunt for a murderer. It is something which concerns the safety of America. It was that which made me ask you to come.”
Betty started to answer, then suddenly stopped. She stared across the ballroom, eyes wide with amazement. Something strange was happening. It was a warmish spring night. Windows on both sides of the ballroom were open. Now a smoky haze was coming through these windows. People were moving back.
A man’s voice was raised in sudden excitement.
“Fire!” he said.
The soft throb of the orchestra came to a stop. Low conversation was hushed. Agent “X” rose to his feet, stepped forward. He moved quickly toward one of the open windows which gave on a wide lawn outside. Then he paused and sniffed, nostrils dilating.
A strange odor was in the air. The haze of smoke was curling in ghostly streamers through the whole big room. This was not fire—it was something else. A girl near “X” gave a cry and swayed against her escort.
“I’m fainting,” she gasped. “Air—please.”
But she did not reach the door. She had taken only two steps when her knees gave way and she collapsed on the polished floor. Others were staggering, too. The smoke in the air made a dim veil, blurring faces. Or was it the effect of the strange scent? Agent “X” did not know. This time he leaped toward the window.
But his leap ended in a drunken sort of stagger. For a fresh breath of the strange smoke had entered his nostrils. It made his senses swim. He heard other cries around him; saw, as through an awful fog, that men and women in all parts of the room were sinking to their knees, collapsing on the floor.
He turned back toward Betty Dale, tried to reach her. She, too, was collapsing, slumping sidewise in the seat, her head falling forward on a wilting neck.
Chill horror grasped Secret Agent “X.” In a frenzy of effort he tried to go to her, get her out of this room. But his muscles would not respond. Like a man caught in the grip of a horrible nightmare that paralyzes while a danger he cannot avoid creeps upon him, Agent “X” fell to the floor. There he lay, immobile, unable to move—slipping closer and closer to the borderland of unconsciousness.
Chapter XIII
The Threat
AGENT “X” struggled fiercely, his iron will urging him on. He would not give up as other men did. Physically helpless, he fought to retain that spark of consciousness which still made him able to see and hear. Turning his head he breathed through his cupped hands, holding them across his face, drawing the air through tense fingers to purify it.
Numb in every muscle, his eyes could still focus. And he was amazed at what he saw.
Hideously evil faces appeared in the windows as the strange haze began to clear. Sinister brown-skinned figures glided into the room. There were at least a half-dozen of them, and they began robbing the inert guests with calculated thoroughness.
They stripped rings from fingers, links from men’s cuffs, necklaces from the white throats of women, tiaras from their hair. Jewels were all they seemed to seek. Everything that glittered they fell upon and pocketed as a flock of hungry vultures might pluck flesh from bones.
“X” could not stop them. He could not even cry out. The single small jewel that Betty Dale was fond of, an heirloom from her dead mother, was taken from her throat as he looked. Then fresh horror came.
Two of the men were lifting Betty Dale up. He saw as in an unbelievable nightmare her body rise from the floor, saw her blonde head hang limply, saw her borne toward the door.
Icy hands clutched at the Agent’s heart then. Frantic blood surged in his veins. He tried to move, but still the drug held him. An invisible net seemed spread o
ver his whole body.
His lips moved to form words: “Betty Dale! Betty Dale!” But they made no sound. He alone of all the guests was witness to her abduction. And he was unable to prevent it. It was plain to him who these brown-skinned men were. This was the poisonous Malay horde whose master was the green-masked killer. These were the men who had tried to murder him with the dart on the lawn of Blackwell’s house, the same who had tortured poor Saunders to death with the hideous Kep-shak. And now they were taking Betty Dale away.
More terrible than torture of the body was the mental torture that gripped Agent “X.” Except for him, Betty Dale would be safe in her own home city hundreds of miles away. If he had not called her, this would not have happened.
As he lay, fighting for the power to move, bathed in cold sweat, a shadow fell on the floor beside him. He could not turn, but his eyes rolled feebly. The shadow belonged to one of the brown-skinned men.
The man stooped, pinned a note to Agent “X’s” coat. Then he moved after the others, and the Agent caught a last glimpse of Betty Dale’s golden head. A last glimpse of her pale, lovely face.
There came times when the Agent’s dauntless spirit seemed to master his flesh. This was one of them. Overcome like the others by the strange smoke that had filled the room, Agent “X” refused to let it conquer the fighting heart within him.
The fingers of his right hand began to move. A quivering set their tips in motion. They curled up slowly until his fist was clenched. Then his arm moved also, beginning at the elbow, drawing toward his chest. The fingers plucked the note that the brown man had left. His eyes scanned the words that the note held. And the words seemed to burn into his senses like fire, eating away the coma that held him.
“You cannot win, Agent ‘X,’” the note said. “You saw Saunders die, and were horrified. You were horrified, too, when I killed Rathborne’s man, Peters. But you have not seen all. It is terrible to die, but a living death is worse. There are poisons that act quickly. There are others that gnaw at the nerves themselves—destroying what can never be repaired. And my slaves are masters of their art. I have your friend Betty Dale, who came to Washington to aid you. Through her I issue a command. Make no further investigation into this case. Leave the city at once—or my slaves will practise their art on her. She will be stricken, paralyzed for life, her mind and body shattered forever. Take warning and obey. The Green Mask.”
Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated) Page 50